


David's Salvation

by blind_bombshell



Category: David Copperfield (2000), Hannibal Extended Universe - Fandom, Madancy Multiverse - Fandom, The Salvation (2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Western, Cowboy AU, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-10
Updated: 2017-02-10
Packaged: 2018-09-23 08:52:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,959
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9648752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blind_bombshell/pseuds/blind_bombshell
Summary: Widowers, David Copperfield and Jon Jensen, meet in the Americas. There's a poker game, a homestead, and a slow-burn romance behind this link.[[Trashy historical romance novel-type Madancy AU for funsies. This really got out of hand, and I'm sorry.]]





	

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is a trashy western romance novel and thus it plays at being historically accurate but ISN'T QUITE (I did this on purpsoe) everything within is jumbled between a decade or so). The story takes place around 1855, approximately 6 years after the novel, David Copperfield, was published and, quite frankly, I don't remember the timeline for the movie "The Salvation". I've taken, like, SO MANY LIBERTIES in the name of a cowboy AU with a smattering of smut. I hope you enjoy.

          “They’ll be sorry,” Margaret “Maggie” Deveraux promised, “They’ll wish they hadn’t kicked us off. Someone will come back for us, you’ll see. And they’ll apologize, too.” Her chin quivered with repressed emotion as she attempted not to break down and cry, even though the only “public” to speak of was David and Elizabeth Hampton.

          David Covey, nee Copperfield, watched through swollen downcast eyes as the last few of the wagon train disappeared into the maroon and golden sunset and the stragglers rose against the hill and disappeared from view and, as far as he was concerned, forever. The dust from fifty-odd teams of oxen and horses pulling carts larger than some of the houses he’d had to take refuge in the past few weeks settled around him with the finality of his shattered dreams. He grimaced, tongue flicking out against his swollen, cut lower lip and he sighed, worrying his battered, dirty hat in his hands. Everything tasted like dirt lately and everything itched. America, he was finding, wasn’t so much a land of opportunity and more like the land of dust and abandoned hopes. He turned to face the women standing with him, travelling companions of happenstance rather than choice but the only people he knew and felt he could trust in the New World.

          He thought he heard "Broke-Jaw" Jake holler over the hill, “Hold tight, gert un!” but the call he’d heard every day for the last month or so since they’d set out for San Francisco was no longer meant for them – their two-horse wagon had no place in the long line heading west. The three of them, honest and good-working though they were, had been summarily abandoned as easy as one would toss chaff from grain. Their soft faces, soft hands, manners, and fashionable clothing couldn’t save them out here, not in what Jake had called “Man’s Country”. Their general inexperience with everything from travelling long distances to making a meal out of anything that was found had been more of a liability than an asset and, Jake had confided, their dismissal was long overdue. “We can’t be helpin’ ya en thun helpin’ erselves, ya understand,” he’d muddled through, jaw working in odd ways as he tried his best to speak.

          David sighed again, scratching the back of his head with his free hand before putting his hat back on. “No, I’m afraid not, Maggie,” he said, as clearly as he could, fighting back his own tears as he faced a young girl at least five, if not ten, years younger than he. If his misguided love of Agnes had taught him anything, after all, it was to always be practical and honest, even when the truth hurt. Maggie, however, even though she wore a woman’s body, was more prone to flights of fancy and often clung to hope where none ever would be, much like a child she still was at heart. He liked that about her, sometimes, as it felt at times like she would say would his beloved Dora would. Now, however, was not one of those times. “No one’s turning back, Maggie, no one’s coming for us.”

          “Then we’ll follow, we’ll stay far behind so they don’t see us and won’t know,” she gulped quickly and tried not to look at the edge of hysterics like she was, “We can’t just stay out here, not without anyone to help us.”

          “Stop it,” Ruth Anders snapped, Irish lilt affording even her chastisement a lovely sound. A parentified child all-grown up, Ruth was less forgiving of any kind of foolishness, though she wasn’t unkind. She still didn’t understand what he was doing out in the West when he’d had a perfectly serviceable life back in England, but then how could one explain the heartache of losing two loves in a lifetime – one to childbirth and the other to a better suitor than ones’ self? “We can’t follow,” Ruth continued, jolting David out of his reverie, “Even if the three of us could manage the team, there’s no one to hunt for food. We’ll be out of supplies in a week, in two we’ll be starving. We keep going, yes, but we can’t follow. Not out West.”

          David finally met Ruth’s eyes, filled with an inner heartbreak and steely determination. Even though she was all of thirty, her deep blue eyes lacked all spark of vitality. She was as pale as anything, waifish, her blonde hair almost as light as her skin. She was unnerving to look at for very long, almost spectral in appearance and as though she was just clinging to this mortal life. David knew from experience she was stronger than she appeared, but that wasn’t really saying much.

          In the weeks since they left Deadwood, Ruth had lost her first baby and her husband to fever. When she became ill, the wagon master ordered her wagon burned, along with everything she owned or had extended contact with on the trail. David offered, then insisted, on giving the poor thing a break and took her into his wagon. He couldn’t leave her there in the dirt, miserable from illness and delirious with loss of literally everything she’d ever had. Maggie, the middle child of seven and trained as a nurse, had then come aboard to look after Ruth and get her strength back.  When the wagon master, Broke Jaw, found out, he’d ordered David and his menagerie to the rear of the wagon train.

          Ten days later, when the wagons had stopped, a council was called and a vote was cast to rid themselves of “undesirables”.

          “I wish I _were_ a witch like they say I am,” Maggie shouted, whirling around, skirts fluttering, and stalking back to the wagon, “I’d have turned them into crows for how they treated us. How dare they. They should’ve shot us and be done with it. What chance do we got out here on our own?” She leaned heavily against the side of the wagon, deflated, and gave herself away to tears.

          David looked from one woman to another. While he couldn’t stand to watch Maggie cry he also couldn’t stand to watch Ruth draw into herself, and he didn’t know what he could do about either that wouldn’t make the situation worse. He nodded resolutely to himself and began making camp, just like he had done every night for the past month or so. It would be dark in an hour, a fire had to be built, and without weapons or protection, light was their only defense.

          As he gathered wood, David tried to force down the fear that was threatening to choke him and tried to think clearly. Be logical. Be practical. Be sensible. _What would Agnes do?_ As he worked, he could almost hear Agnes lecturing him, as she always has, his practical angel. Then again, hadn’t practicality lead him here? It was practical, when Agnes told him about her new beau, to pretend to be excited for his oldest, dearest friend, even though it felt like swallowing glass. He was only being practical when he came to the Americas, looking for inspiration for his new book and having a break from London society, the circle of pitying looks at the widower author and the vultures after his meager fortune. It was practical, after all, when his guide had heard word from his wife that she needed him back home, to send him along without David. After all, he’d lived an interesting life and got along pretty well in London, how hard could it be to get to San Francisco?

          David dropped a load of wood on the ground a few feet from the wagon and headed back to the nearby copse of trees to find more. He’d made several trips more before finally stopping to have a wash. In the stillness of the twilight, he pulled Dora’s tin-type from his pocket and felt a shard of loneliness strike his heart. It’d been nearly five years since he last held her hand and heard her dulcet tones. He’d had this tintype even longer than that. Dear, sweet Dora. He pet her fading face with a finger and tucked it safely back in his shirt, tucked away along with his dreams of marriage and a family. That probably wasn’t his road to travel anymore, not really, but he still had a faint glimmer of hope for _something. Someone_ to love _._ He glanced down at the outline of himself in the dark ebbing water, sans cap and waistcoat, he looked as spectral as Ruth. He finished washing up, cursing his flushed cheeks and pinkened lips as he did so, making him look more like a lad or lady than a man.

          By the time he made it back to the others, Maggie had stopped crying and was building the fire. Ruth was already curled in her blankets, so slight that she nearly disappeared within them. “WE have bean and cornbread,” Maggie chirped, darkened mood momentarily ameliorated, “If we’re careful, eat maybe once a day, we’ll last a few weeks and another train is surely to come along by then!”

          David tried to smile. Hard times were nothing new for Maggie, after all, she’d been on her own since her mother died seven years ago. She’d had herself a good cry and now it was time to get on with surviving. The train they’d left with was the probably the last of the year, some say if people don’t reach the Rockies by August, they never would make it across before the snow got them. The chances of another train following up so late in the season were slight and cattle drives that cross this trail, going north, usually did so in the spring.  But that didn’t mean a thing to Maggie, who was building her hopes as she built their meal. “I know they said Ruth has the fever, but I don’t think so. So far, she hasn’t given us anything. She’s just torn-up about her family, she’ll be right as rain in a week or so. I can feel it in my bones.”

          At this, David did have a wry, mirthless chuckle. “You feeling things in your bones is one of the reasons you got left behind with Ruth and me. They were scared of Ruth’s fever, but don’t think for a moment they weren’t also shaken by your talk.”

          Maggie wriggled in her seat, pulling a face, “Hush your teasing or I’ll cast my evil eye on you!”

          David laughed as she swatted at him with her so-called ‘wrangling towel’. “Or what, you’ll curse me to be a weary, ugly man lost in a foreign country with a sick woman and a girl”

          “I’m fully grown,” Maggie pouted, conversely seeming even younger. “Do... do ya think we’ll die out here, David?” Her big brown eyes searched his meaningfully and he tweaked her nose in recompense.

          “No. And we’re not waiting around for someone to save us, either. We’re all capable people, we can make it to the next town, at the very least, if not further,” he looked into the fire, determined, “Come morning, we’re loading up on wood and water, then heading back where we saw the red mail barrow and go south on that road.”

          Maggie’s emerging smile instantly faded into a worried frown, “South? David, we can’t—“

          David tried to sound confident, like a man who’d brook no argument, someone who was right and knew he was. “That’s right, Mags. In the morning, the three of us are headed to Denver.”

          Maggie’s face soured, looking like she’d swallowed a stone, and started pushing the beans around her tin plate morosely. Some things, after all, were worse than death.


End file.
